So the MS Dept of Wildlife, Fisheries & Parks is too burdened by..
- Thread starter Xenomorph
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There are certainly "conservatives" that don't know of any policy other than a tax cut, but Mississippi has a pretty stiff tax burden. It's not like we're a low tax state and hell bent on getting to the lowest tax state. We waste a **** ton of money, and there are places we could spend money that would be a good investment instead of wasting it, but it is really not a winning combination to be a low amenity, high tax state.
Yes, which is fine. There may be parks that are just not going to make money, and the state will either have to run those, close them, or take a bid that involves the state paying a company to maintain it rather than the state receiving a revenue share.
What is wrong with the state providing land that the royal we pay for and somebody else maintaining it and the amenities associated with it?
If the state goes out of its way to do a corrupt deal, then that is not a problem with privatization, that is a problem with corrupt lawmakers and government employees. If they want to actually provide better amenities to people enjoying the parks, there are plenty of successful models for them to just copy. There is nothing cutting edge about this; it's not like they have to reinvent the wheel.
Even if one management company gets a contract for every state park, aside from the fact that they won't have unlimited freedom to set prices under the contract, they are still competing with other entertainment besides state parks. They can't jack up prices and not improve amenities and make more money. They'll make less money because even fewer people will come.
Ah, gotcha. If handling just the amenities and leaving the natural part of the park alone, I can see that as a good thing
You realize it's pretty easy to have privately managed parks and still have opportunities for people to enjoy nature at taxpayer expense?
For example, you can charge for every amenity except for hiking trails. People that want amenities can have them and pay for them, people that just want to hike get to hike trails. As long as the people that want to pay for amenities also want maintained hiking trails, the non-payers will get pretty nice trails for free. You could even have a model where there are primitive camp grounds for non-paying public. They won't get maintained well unless campers do it themselves, but if all you want is primitive camping with no amenities other than a parking spot, it shouldn't take a lot for campers to just spruce up their area when they come in to camp.
Alternatively, although I think this would be a waste of administrative resources, you could have people apply for vouchers based on income or lack thereof.
Certainly there is nothing wrong with just having government run parks that are completely free, but when you are talking about state parks, they tend to not be very nice because while people say they want everybody to be able to enjoy state parks, when it comes time to pay for that, there's usually not enough money left after education, healthcare, law enforcement, general corruption/pet projects, etc., so the choice is ****** parks for free, or parks with amenities that have user fees.
In the Northwest corner of the state is a perfect example of MDWFP failure and rich folks screwing it up for others. MDWFP should have purchased land along Horn Lake/ Lakeview. At a minimum they should require a right of way to access that state lake after the Belz folks acquired all that land around it. When there was a ramp there, it seemed it was doing well. Now it seems to be limited to some club that has a few buildings on the property that seems to be boat storage and they have some ramps for both Horn Lake and North Horn Lake.
It is a fairly large lake in a very populated area and was a close place for a quick few hours of fishing. Now the closest lake to me is 50 miles away.
It is a fairly large lake in a very populated area and was a close place for a quick few hours of fishing. Now the closest lake to me is 50 miles away.
I definitely see that. I was just saying the people I know that do that, and land I know of that is locked down and not hunted, involve rich individuals, not clubs. Or if it's a club, it's 3 or 4 rich friends that lock something down together, and is what I would consider a private "camp" rather than a hunting club. The hunting clubs I'm aware of tend to lean towards meat hauls where they are overhunted. Or at the olther end of the spectrum, the members may not want to take all the does their management plan says each member needs to take, but they still hunt it hard; they just don't shoot much.
Dont hit em with real life examples.
Kansas...what a shitshow. That place consistently votes against its own interests and then looks around and wonders why things arent better.
Those tax law changes from a decade ago cut what the top 1% paid and directly shifted the burden to the lower quarter of earners. Schools were left underfunded more than they had been. Road improvement project were just given up on. Koch businesses benefitted bigly.
Maybe if they had just let it ride for 10 or 15 more years they would have seen that trickle down benefit finally come to fruition.
...or they would have driven the state to the point of failure.
I believe you’re thinking of CWD and Phil Bryant WMA. They bought it about a year after the state’s first CWD case was identified there. I do believe it was coincidental. Surrounding land is selling for more $ now than ever before, so we have other evidence suggesting CWD did not and has not impacted values. Also, there’ve been subsequent positive cases in the area, including this season. While I love a good .gov conspiracy theory, this one has too many holes to gain even the smallest attention.
I like the idea of a cabin at one of the state parks, but then I think about the last time I stayed at a cabin at one of the state parks...
The 2 billion in lost revenue is going to have to be made up from somewhere (either cut expenses or raise other taxes) and as I said if we already can't take care of our state parks then what. And don't use Texas, Tn. and Fl. for examples as if the ONLY difference in us and them is state income tax. I just see the cost of living in Ms. going up and services going down because of this and I personally don't see that as bettering ourselves.
Sounds like that's the problem right there. Maybe Shad is plugging all the holes, and we can still get rid of the income tax.
Of course, that still doesn't help the parks.
Yep, they are all nasty, even in the nice parks, Alabama included. They are just gross. I think we could probably eliminate them. RV and campsites are all you need, in addition to the ranger station and maintenance buildings.
What you have laid out is the only coherent argument in favor of whatever the legislature is talking about doing. But, let's be clear. That's not "running it like a business."
A private business has competition, has to innovate, is dependent on profits, and can quit at any time. Privatization means a company gets to decide what happens with the park. That's not what you are describing. If the "private" business gets to make all the decisions and still gets paid what the government would normally pay to maintain the park, then we are just talking about the government subsidizing a business that could not survive without the government funds. That sounds like something else that I won't mention at the risk of pissing off a lot of the MSU faithful.
If the government wants to outsource its responsibility to provide a public good to an independent contractor, and, by doing so, the public gets the same product, then I am all for that. But, that's just the government outsourcing an expense. We are all still paying for it. It is still a public good. It isn't "privatized" or a "business." You can also color me skeptical that anyone can provide a service at 60% of what it used to cost. Has there been some sort of innovation in park maintenance?
A private business has competition, has to innovate, is dependent on profits, and can quit at any time. Privatization means a company gets to decide what happens with the park. That's not what you are describing. If the "private" business gets to make all the decisions and still gets paid what the government would normally pay to maintain the park, then we are just talking about the government subsidizing a business that could not survive without the government funds. That sounds like something else that I won't mention at the risk of pissing off a lot of the MSU faithful.
If the government wants to outsource its responsibility to provide a public good to an independent contractor, and, by doing so, the public gets the same product, then I am all for that. But, that's just the government outsourcing an expense. We are all still paying for it. It is still a public good. It isn't "privatized" or a "business." You can also color me skeptical that anyone can provide a service at 60% of what it used to cost. Has there been some sort of innovation in park maintenance?
I would imagine it's something like what Starkville and Brandon have done with the Parks and Recreation. Apparently Starkville pays 15K per month to Sports Facilities Management to handle all city parks. They already had a contract with them to run the new park. I have no idea how much it was paying before to handle them, but I guess the benefit is nicer parks altogether, because taxpayers are definitely subsidizing it. Maybe it can work, but it seems to me the only way they'd do that is for it to be cheaper.
You are correct about Arkabutla. I rarely go there so I kind of forget about it.
How do you know about Lakeview? I haven't been on it since the flooding in 2011.
How do you know about Lakeview? I haven't been on it since the flooding in 2011.
I'm not opposed to medical MJ, but I've yet to see where casino taxes have benefitted higher ed, as promised, and I'm not even sure where the lottery money is supposed to go. It's MS. You can't expect any "extra" revenue to find the right home very often.
The clubs I speak of took over in the late 70's and 80's. Before that it was easy to find a little piece of land to hunt without packs of deer dogs or tons of other hunters. They leased up all the land to where not only couldn't you hunt unless you got an invite to join the dog hunters and 4 wheeler rut guys. I was lucky enough to find a 80 acre place a very old and wise guy let me and my friends until he passed away and they clear cut it to open an area between two big hunting leases. Since I wasn't in the right family or friends I was forced to hunt public land so I like many of my friends hunted hogs, Turkey, and small game on the public land and quit deer hunting.
Hell, I had a creek that I used to fish for walleye when they were running that I had to give up because it was leased where you couldn't even fish the creeks and bridges on leased land for fear of trespassing fines.
When I was younger there were lots of small tracks of land I was given permission to hunt deer, small game, and quail because I treated their land like my own that was eventually snatched up by the big clubs. No doubt, there are some good groups of hunt clubs out there that's not the ones I am talking about.
MIxed feeling on this,
Likely fees will get jacked up, if they do it.
Overall we have a good setup, but it's Gov't operated. (and all that implies)
Let's just not let this get out of hand.
Likely fees will get jacked up, if they do it.
Overall we have a good setup, but it's Gov't operated. (and all that implies)
Let's just not let this get out of hand.
No kidding. I know nothing about politics around here, but whoever is REALLY running Hernando couldn’t care less about that or youth sports for kids who don’t want to play 267 games a year.
Everyone at MSDWFP wants to be a game warden, thus they don’t give a damn about parks. License fee money only pays for their game warden game while general fund funds pay for everything. The state is sitting on a pile of money right now so look for a big one time amount to refurbish the parks. Also don’t be surprised if management does turn to the private sector. That could be a win win plan.
Kayak. I’ve had a lot of success at Calling Panther, Neshoba, and Holmes Co. While they aren’t state owned I’ve also done well at Crystal Lake (Flowood owned) and Pushmataha (tribe owned). Push is the most underrated lake in the state imo. Still want to check out Eagle Lake and Lake Lincoln.
They don't contract out management of any of their parks. The DO contract out management of the concessions at almost all, if not all, of them.
Haha, if there was a mountain in Flowood, it'd have a nice park and be packed all the time too.
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